Etymology of a Rebel
by Phosphorescent
Summary: Andromeda never planned to go against her family. But then she met Ted Tonks.


_Disclaimer: The views expressed in this fic are not necessarily those of the author. Also: Me? Own Harry Potter? You can't be serious?_

* * *

In Greek, Andromeda means "she who has bravery in her mind".

Andromeda supposes that this is an accurate enough descriptor; she _does_ have bravery in her mind, after all. But nowhere in her name does it say whether or not she'll ever act on it.

When Ted asks her to marry him, she hesitates. She loves Ted, of course she does. But romance is ephemeral and blood ties are forever. Family is everything.

She remembers the tales of her childhood, tales of Ariadne and Medea; girls who betrayed their families to run off with charming strangers. Girls whose ungrateful lovers dropped them like yesterday's rubbish as soon as they'd gone past the point of no return. Foolish girls who disgraced both themselves and their families.

There are lessons to be learned from Ariadne's and Medea's stories.

Which isn't to say that she believes Ted would abandon her. But… no one _ever_ thinks that until it happens to them.

And there are so many things Ted doesn't understand.

She may not agree with her family's more radical beliefs, but she loves them and they love her. They want what they think is the best for her; she can't fault them for that.

In a book of Muggle plays that Ted once lent her, the hare-witted heroine had begged her lover to "deny thy father and refuse thy name". The self-same girl had gone on to insist that a name was "no part of thee". Ridiculous!

It would be easier to sever a limb from one's body than to separate one's name – one's blood, one's _identity_ – from oneself. Family is everything. No matter what happens, Andromeda is and always will be a Black.

Ted doesn't understand that, not really. He knows that she loves her family, of course, but he seems to think that her upbringing is something that she can just discard; something she can put to the side the same way she might a pair of shoes that had gone out of fashion. He doesn't understand her family's world, doesn't understand _her_ world. (He likely never will.)

So she hesitates. Agreeing to marry Ted is a betrayal that her family will not be able to overlook. Up until this point she hasn't done anything that – if she were caught – couldn't be explained away as a youthful indiscretion. (She hasn't done anything that she couldn't explain away to herself.)

But marriage… marriage is real. Marriage is serious. Marriage is _permanent_. Marriages connect existing families and create new ones. Her family won't take well to being linked with the likes of the Tonkses. And, in a secret, shameful portion of her soul, Andromeda understands this.

Oh, Ted's parents are perfectly _nice_ – of course they are. But they aren't… they don't… well, they're a little chavvish, if she's to be perfectly frank. She can get past the fact that they are Muggles, but they're the sort of Muggles she has nothing in common with: working class and rather MIF, don't you know. And she's well aware that she's being a snob, but she can't _help_ it. The Black in her is acutely aware of class.

Of course, she may be a snob, but compared to the rest of her family she's a bleeding-heart blood traitor. She may not be exactly comfortable in the Muggle world, but she doesn't have any urge to eliminate or subjugate it.

Having said that, the more she learns about Muggles, the more they terrify her. They have metal wands they call 'guns' that can shoot lumps of metal at you, and they have 'nuke-eau-leur bombs' that explode and can kill entire cities. Most of the Muggles that she's met seem harmless enough, but it's unnerving to think that even the meekest of them could be hiding a weapon of capable of such destruction.

The one time she voiced these concerns to Ted, he told her that she was being both prejudiced and ridiculous. "The Black in you is showing, Andie," he'd said wryly, and gone on to remind her that wands were similarly dangerous. But wands, she'd informed him, had purposes other than destruction. Also, there wasn't yet a spell dark and powerful enough to wipe out multiple _cities_.

She doesn't agree with her family's politics, but can she help it if she thinks they have some valid points?

She'll never agree with Muggle-hunting or house-elf beheading (although really, that's just Aunt Walburga these days, and most of the family agrees that she has a tendency to go overboard), but there's something to be said for centuries of tradition. Not _those_ sorts of traditions, of course, but there's nothing wrong with familial pride at being able to trace one's lineage back to the time of Circe, is there? There's nothing wrong with having certain standards.

Andromeda never _planned_ to go against her family. But then she met Ted Tonks, and he won her over. And now it's too late… she's in too deep; she loves him. Mud– _muggleborn_ Ted. Funny, warm-hearted, persistent Ted. She loves him despite all his faults, and he loves her despite all of hers.

But Andromeda is a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor. She doesn't charge blindly into life-altering decisions. So she stops and carefully weighs her options, eventually coming to the conclusion that turning Ted down would be the prudent thing to do.

If she were truly clever, Andromeda knows she would end the relationship as soon as possible. But Andromeda is a Slytherin, not a Ravenclaw. She weighs the costs and makes the decision that will get her what she _wants_ rather than what will simply be in her best interests.

Andromeda loves Ted and she loves her family, but for the time being, it appears that she can't have them both. If she were a different person, she might whole-heartedly embrace one side over the other. But Andromeda is a Slytherin, not a Hufflepuff; she lives in the twilight of grey ambiguities and torn loyalties.

So she agonizes over it, and finally comes to a conclusion:

Family is forever. Blood ties cannot be broken, even if her name is struck from the family tree.

Ted, though… if she lets him go now, she'll never get him back.

And so she gives Ted her answer and forever seals her fate.

(_"Will you marry me?"_)

"Yes."

* * *

_A/N for the puzzled:_

_* Chavvish means to act like or to possess certain qualities of a Chav. Chav is one of those words that everyone has a slightly different definition of, but the general gist is that it's a derogatory slur for 'flashy', non-educated lower class folk, probably originating from a Romani word. It's a rather rude term, but certainly one that I can see the Blacks using._

_* MIF stands for Milk in First (that is to say, putting milk into your teacup before anything else), which is supposedly an indicator of being middle (rather than upper) class._


End file.
